Ajamu Baraka on War & Peace

U.S. complicity created Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan

There is a context--no matter how painful to admit--of U.S. and Western complicity in creating the very forces that now terrorize the imagination of publics in the West. Just a cursory glance of that sordid history reveals the baselessness of the
assumption of innocence that makes up the dominate narrative being pushed by the corporate press.

President Carter's strategy [created] the "Soviet Union's Vietnam" by bogging it down militarily in Afghanistan with the an international corps of
right-wing Islamists ready to fight the godless Soviets. The Mujahedeen performed marvelously, destroying a secular nationalist government with Marxist leanings and plunging the nation into the chaos that led to the establishment of the Taliban and
al-Qaeda.

These kinds of cynical calculations have always been a cornerstone of colonial "divide and rule" politics. However, the religious fervor and commitment of these Islamic elements could not be turned on and off.

CIA training & equipment created ISIS in Syria & Iraq

With the CIA fully involved in training and equipping what was referred to as the "rebel" forces, the Administration didn't appear to be too concerned when ISIS broke off from al-Qaeda and began to establish its own independent economic base once it
captured the oil fields in Syria. It all seemed like part of the plan, especially when it became clear that NATO member Turkey was being used to get the Syrian oil to world markets.

But this strategy turned into disaster when ISIS double-crossed their
benefactors by breaking the rules and attacking the "good Kurds" in Iraq. The strategy appeared to be more concerned with holding territory in Iraq and Syria than carrying out their assignment to overthrow the Assad government and completing the
dismemberment of the Syrian state--the strategic objective of U.S. and Israeli policy to counter the regional power of the Iranians. This "blowback" theory is controversial.

Mideast military interventions results in complete chaos

With news of ISIS gaining momentum in Iraq, some are questioning the effectiveness of America's involvement in the Middle East. Veteran human rights activist Ajamu Baraka criticized US foreign policy over the last 20 years: "The foreign policies of the
US in the last two decades, as it relates to Iraq and most of the nations in the middle east, has been disastrous," he said, adding, "what has occurred in Iraq was predictable."

He went on to say that military tactics so far have not seemed to
help. "It's clear that the military option has not worked. You've had military interventions now throughout the entire Middle East," he said. "You see the results: complete and utter chaos." He also argues that America's involvement was the result of a
devious strategy to escalate a minor political irritant into a major concern for Americans. Baraka concluded, "We have to make a determination: whose interests are we in fact supporting when we support these ventures to these foreign countries?"

US position of continued war in Syria ignores Assad election

The dominant narrative on Syria, carefully cultivated by Western state propagandists and the corporate media, is that the conflict in Syria is a courageous fight on the part of the majority of the Syrian people against the brutal dictatorship of Bashar
al-Assad. By attacking "its own citizens," the Assad regime, representing the minority Alawite community, can only maintain its dominance over the rest of the country through sheer terror.

However, events in Syria, with the election being a dramatic
example, continue to reveal fissures in that story. It became clear that substantial numbers of non-Alawite people and communities support the government.

The U.S. position is a position of continued war in Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry
declared that Syria's presidential election was a "farce," and that the U.S. and its partners are prepared to quickly redouble efforts to support opposition forces in the county.

No one ever held accountable for US attack on Iraq

The U.S. attack on Iraq defied both an outraged world opinion--expressed by global mass demonstrations--and the United Nations charter. Ten years later, the awesome consequences of that criminal assault are clear. More than $1 trillion spent,
almost 5,000 American lives lost, more than 32,000 Americans wounded, estimates of a million dead Iraqis and almost 5 million displaced. Yet, ten years later, no one, not one government official, has been held accountable.

Killing Saddam & Kaddafi were arrogant white supremacism

The public slaughter of Kaddafi and the hanging of Saddam Hussein are two sides of the same arrogant, white supremacist coin. In both cases it is the imperialist West, using the power of the military & with the full support of a majority of the people,
that bombed cities; murdered and imprisoned government officials; tortured prisoners to death--in order to bring to those people the benefits of living in "free societies" like those of the West. And now, as the US slinks out of Iraq, we are being told
that all that was done was for the good of the Iraqi people and that it is up to the Iraqis to protect the gift of freedom that the US has bestowed upon them.

What is more sad than the fact that this line is being fed to the people in the US to cover
their defeat (and that it is being accepted), is the knowledge that until we undermine forever the false assumptions and prerogatives of white supremacist ideology, more blood will be shed and more nations destroyed--all in the name of a monstrous lie.